In another thread, lumic and I were talking about the ways that carriers subsidize phones through contracts or other ways to set up costs for smart phones and service.

Lumic said,

Originally Posted by lumic

In Australia, pretty much no phones have an upfront cost. A high-end phone (Galaxy Nexus) will launch on a $59 plan over 24 months - $1416. An older phone (Desire Z / G2) might be on a $29 plan for 24 months - $696.

While here in the US, we pay for both the phone and the service separately, but with a reduced phone price when we buy it with a contract.

260+20+20*24=$760 for two year's use. I'm completely jealous. Even if I got a free phone, I'm paying around $1080 just for talk, text, and data in two years.

On our family plan we pay $250/month for 4 $.01 TITANs on a 2 yr contract w/ AT&T.
$250*12/4 = $750/yr each. We have the option to early upgrade every year.. Which we usually do and just agree to two more years. I love AT&T and don't plan on switching anyway.

Edit: with unlimited msging and unlimited mobile to any mobile in the US, its pretty much unlimited talk time with 2gb of data each.

I bought my focus for 150.00 from another attorney friend who switches phones regularly and sells them on ebay ofr friends who want them. Put my sim in and was in business with my unltd data plan and family plan for minutes and messaging. My wife and daughter have iphones.

Paid about $100 for my Focus with a 2-year contract. It's the only smartphone in my house. I have two other lines in the account. After corporate discounts, my monthly bill is about $135 for 1400 minutes with rollover, 200MB data plan on the Focus, family unlimited texting, and unlimited mobile-to-mobile.

I got my HD7 new on ebay for $300 (+ $20 shipping). We have a family plan on T-Mo (2yrs), 2 lines ($40/line, unlimited data first 2GB of which is 4G then down shifts to 2G, 500 minutes voice, 2 x $8 for insurance, + some taxes). Total bill is about $100/month. So I'm paying $50/month for my phone. So, 300 + 50 * 24 = $1500.